Best rescue ever

[Pirke]

So I'm playing on hard, with FAR, DRE and RealChutes.

My tech level is very low: I only have 2 liquid engine types, no RCS, no buildings upgraded.

I see this very lucrative (I need the cash) rescue mission of a Kerbal in a 115km orbit.

I know this is going to be dangerous, but no risk no reward right?

So I build my rescue rocket with 2 pods stacked on top of each other, some batteries, 2 parachutes (main + reserve, Jeb still lives thanks to the reserve), and the rest fuel, 2 liquid engines and an initial booster. Exactly 30 parts and just below the 18t limit.

First launch to orbit actually failed. I started the gravity turn too soon and the whole thing became unstable. It also didn't help that I didn't have any thrust vectoring or winglets. I quickly decoupled the double pod, deployed the main chute, but the main chute always fails when you need it the most. Luckily the reserve chute opened, and the pods were slowly descending back to Kerbal. In the meantime the ground control crew was not happy to see all that cash, also called fuel and engines, go to waste.

The second attempt went well, and orbit was achieved. Without maneuver nodes the rendezvous was a bit guess work, and some crucial mistakes were made that cost 500 dV, out of 550 available... Still, the target was now only 10km away and closing. With several adjustments I burned through all the fuel, he could see the target floating a mere 220 meters away, but I couldn't grab him. The EVA suit was not ready yet and I didn't know that I needed to use the [ ] keys........ Switching to from the Tracking Station didn't work so I was thinking 220 meters was still too far away.

But without any fuel remaining, the rescuer needed to be rescued as well.

I decided to stick with the same craft, first get the mission target back and when the EVA suits were finished I could always go back for the first rescuer. The launch to orbit went pretty well, and no mistakes were made during rendezvous. I had 200 dV remaining when I actually managed to bump into the target, but I still couldn't control him. A quick google found the answer: use [ ] keys. So maybe the first rescuer could have made it after all if I just knew the correct keys.

Still, with a bit of luck I would break even on this mission and get some science / reputation / pilot experience, so just burn retrograde until periapsis is set to 40km. Then I see the first rescue vessel approach at about 20km. I still had some 170 dV left and I just couldn't resist it. I burned prograde again, 140 dV left and made a rendezvous with the first rescue vessel. 125 dV remaining. Vessel 1 quickly decoupled the empy fuel tanks and pointed it's nose towards the horizon.

Without RCS I managed to put the second vessel directly behind it, and made contact at 0.1 m/s: main parachute against heat shield. With just a few percent thrust I started a combined de-orbital burn.

I pushed for a long time and the orbit has declined to 66km. That had to be low enough. I put the second rescue vessel back into a 70km orbit and switched to the first one. Never had I done such a slow and shallow reentry. I could even have done this without a heat shield I think. Anyway, chutes deployed, safe landing. The second rescue vessel was a bit more steep at 40km periapsis, then I ran out of fuel. Decoupled, point heat shield in the right direction, slow down, deploy chutes, safe landing.

So without any tech, RCS, no save reloading (hard mode) I managed to rescue 2 kerbals with only 1 spare seat and some good old fashioned pushing

Unfortunately I also discovered PrtScr is not the screenshot button, another lesson for next time.

[Voidryder]

That m'lad, was a wee bit of fancy flyin'. Have a pint on me.

[LadyAthena]

Good stuff

This is also why I always always always put 2 random docking port on my ships. Sometimes when this happens, all I need to do (to save credits) to "save" a stranded ship in orbit, is simply launch up a small engine that's super cheap with a small probe core on it and 1 battery, and dock 2 of them to my ship for just enough boost to get it down. Cheap and effective.

[Pirke]

I haven't invented any docking ports or probes yet (and I'm still waiting for the remote tech 0.90 update before I do any unmanned flying)

This mission outcome was the best experience I've ever had in KSP, took me over 3 hours, and it was a huge gamble to decide to go back into orbit and try to push. But it paid off! If this was sandbox and not hard mode career I would just have reloaded when the first attempt failed because of lack of fuel. I would have missed this joy though.

It was extra challenging to do it without RCS. When I was lining up behind the stranded pod I could only do corrections by flipping over the whole rocket. I had several close calls as well during all the flipping where I almost smashed into the pod.

Also the reentry burn was way too long, but I couldn't risk more throttle. The result was that the burn started retrograde, but ended almost burning straight down. At that moment I had 2 ships deorbiting, and could only control one. So the only conclusion was to nudge it just into a deorbit (from 115km) and then put the ship back into a orbit so I could handle them one by one. I think I had about 20 m/s dV of margin in the end. Too close for comfort

Edited December 19, 2014 by Pirke